


Nets and Poles

by Starbrow



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbrow/pseuds/Starbrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cor slowly figures out how this brother business works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nets and Poles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [philote_auctor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/philote_auctor/gifts).



> Prompt: "I want to see the boys interacting more, to learn more about their lives once they knew they were brothers. How does Cor (Shasta) adjust to life as a prince with a loving family?"

Cor’s head hit the opened pages of the thick tome in front of him with a _thunk._

 _”Hssst.”_ He cracked an eye open and peered sideways at his twin, sitting at the opposite desk in the study - too much mischief afoot for the pair of them to share a desk, their tutor had declared after a series of incidences in which the distractable Princes were led astray from their studies by bantering and brotherly brawls. “No good?”

Cor shook his head miserably. “No good.”

They were _supposed_ to be writing an essay on the history of the Third Era of Archenland, and maybe that was what Corin was doing, but Cor was still stuck on deciphering the first page of the chapter, word by excruciating word. It was all very well and good showing up as the long-lost heir to the throne after fourteen years, if only he hadn’t come so very ill-prepared for the life of a Prince. They expected him to read, naturally, and Cor had never read a book in his life. He could make out Calormene letters and some basic words - his figures were better, as he’d been responsible for market day whenever Arsheesh was too drunk off his arse to bother - but Narnian, the shared written language of the two Northern countries, was another kettle of fish entirely. 

(Oh, right, they wanted him to leave off the ‘wharf talk’ as befit a Crown Prince. Damn it.)

Master Ventus had been most patient with him, but even the best of tutors couldn’t cram a decade’s worth of learning and literacy into a matter of weeks. And Cor had been giving it his most valiant attempt, just like he’d learned to answer to his new name at the first call and to bow at just the right angle to the various nobles and diplomats who’d come to welcome the new (new to them!) Prince. Mostly, his efforts had just been giving him headaches.

He and Corin weren’t supposed to talk while they studied, but it wasn’t like Cor was making any progress from keeping quiet. “I can only recognize every third word, and they’re all starting to blur together so that I don’t recognize any at all,” he said with a quiet groan and another flop onto the pillow-grade history book.

Corin grimaced in sympathy. “It’s bad enough going at this when you _do_ know all the words. I don’t envy you, brother.” He cast a rather scornful look down at his own pile of books and papers, which had more blotted ink and crossed out lines than finished sentences. 

“Can’t you just tell me what happens and I’ll try to make the best of it in my pigeon scrawl?” Cor was not above capitalizing on his twinly privileges to help each other out of straits, which he’d quickly discovered Corin considered quite his duty to perform. So whenever his younger-by-five-minutes brother came back with yet another assortment of bruises and set of clothes ruined, Cor helped defuse whatever punishment was being waved about as fitting. And whenever Cor was in a pickle about courtly duties or etiquette or mixing up names or any other host of things that could and did go wrong for him, Corin had his back. His miscreant brother, Cor found, actually knew quite a lot about all of that. “I wasn’t Crown Prince for fourteen years for _nothing!_ ” Corin protested hotly when he’d voiced this thought one day. “Lucky for you, too! I know all the secrets...the things they don’t teach you in deportment.” All in all Cor _was_ lucky to have him by his side to help him with all these things.

He cast his twin an imploring look, only to find Corin fixing him with a look that always spelled impending mischief afloat in his head. “No, I have a better idea,” Corin replied with a grin, his voice quiet enough that it wouldn’t carry to any of the adjoining rooms where their tutor was at his own books. “Why should I tell it to you here when I could just as well tell it somewhere else...like on the lake in the coracle.”

“T-that’s not fair!” Cor yanked himself upright, his expression openly covetous of this plan, but he was definitely supposed to be the responsible twin these days. The one who reigned Corin in, not went along with his hare-brained schemes.

(But sometimes those schemes actually _worked._ )

He darted a glance to the antechambers of the study, but there was no sign of their warden - er, tutor. “What I wouldn’t give to be out on the water instead of cooped up here,” Cor muttered wistfully, now that Corin had put that idea in his head and got him thinking about how it would be like to sail again, how nice that sounded just then.

“Well, come on then, what are you waiting around here for?” Grinning like that was his intent all along, Corin was already sliding his chair back soundlessly and snatching up his satchel, stuffing it with his own volume as he beckoned Cor to follow.

There was really nothing for it. Why should Corin get all the fun of a jaunt away from their dusty books? And in the boat too. Cor sighed, but he was already on his feet and silently tiptoeing after his incorrigible twin. Some battles were lost before they’d even begun.

-

The little vessel was probably a bit too big to be called a coracle and a bit too small for a rowboat, but it fit the two of them quite snugly, along with fishing tackle and a pole and net, and Corin’s satchel with a few stolen treats from the kitchens. As soon as they were upon the lake, Cor took duck-like to the water and managed the craft so neatly that Corin whistled. “You’re a born sailor, Cor. We should take the sloop out sometime, down the river! Wouldn’t that be a jolly time? You should be able to manage it, right? I’m rot at sailing, for all that Queen Lucy’s tried to teach me how to manage it.”

The unexpected revelation that he was...actually… _better_ at something than Corin came as a shock to Cor. He’d just gotten so used to Corin knowing how to do pretty much everything already, from riding a horse and arms training to their studies and dealings in court, and Cor didn’t know how to do _any_ of that. After a few weeks, he knew how to do a very, _very_ little of that. 

But what he did know how to do was sail. In the busy season, when traders came south to their little fishing village to sell supplies to the North for the winter, Arsheesh would actually take him out on the boat and leave him to man the sails and rudder, and those were the best days of all, when he’d gotten to escape that prison of a hut and feel the ocean breezes whip through his hair and the tang of the salt air on his lips. This was different, of course, but the feeling of _freedom_ was still there, in the way the little boat drifted upon the waters when he wasn’t rowing, the wind off the lake, the gentle ripples around its tiny hull. And Cor had quickly learned that being King, or King in training, was just exchanging one form of servitude for another. A much better life, in every possible way, but still not entirely his own now, not the way he had pictured a carefree life in Narnia.

And so to realize that not only was this a breath of fresh air (quite literally) but something he was already good at...that _Corin_ was openly praising his skill at it...Cor found there was an embarrassed flush creeping over his cheeks. “I don’t know about that,” he said modestly, but there was a pleased note of pride in his voice that he couldn’t entirely conceal. “But yes, if they’ll let us…”

Corin snorted. “Between the two of us, that won’t be a bit of trouble. _Let_ us? Just let them try to stop us! We’ll be halfway down the Arrow before they catch us.”

Cor knew very well they weren’t supposed to just set off like that; an afternoon lark on the lake was one thing, a sail down the Winding Arrow was quite another. It wasn’t the plan itself that had him thinking long and hard but the way Corin talked about them like...like a team. Like comrades and adventurers that could do pretty much anything they set their minds to and would always _be_ a team, no matter what. He’d never had anyone like that, ever. Maybe Aravis? But Aravis was different. She had his back, for sure, and she was undeniably special to him after their journey, a great pal and maybe someday more; she just wasn’t...

Just wasn’t his brother.

(Later on he would be very glad for this, though.)

That it had taken a little while for this realization of just what it was like to have a _real_ family wasn’t all that surprising, given what a limited view of ‘family’ Shasta had had growing up. Lune’s kindness to him was almost overwhelming at times, leaving Cor feeling shy at times around the man he was still learning to call ‘Father’ without stammering. Corin was something else altogether. He had no airs at all, and Cor didn’t feel the least bit shy around him, and those first few weeks, it was nice to have a constant friend to talk with and skive off with and fight with and make up. _Friends_ was another new idea, but an easier one to absorb properly than _brother._

Cor gave his twin a _look_ \- they’d gotten good at that across the study and armoury during spars and especially across the Great Hall. This particular look said, _You have no idea what you’re talking about, brother._ “We’d need more than just us two, until you knew how to sail too,” he said firmly. “If a storm came up, I’d need someone who could hold his own on a boat of that size. Drowning’s no joke.”

Corin just laughed and nudged the fishing gear at him. “Go on then, sailor, prove your worth. Catch us some dinner. I’ll get us on that sloop yet!” 

Another thing Cor was good at, even if the pole was considerably less familiar than the net. Corin had assured him that poles were the _proper_ way to fish in Archenland, to which he’d replied that a mostly landlocked country _would_ think that, but as usual their arguments were mostly goodnatured and usually ended in a truce. In this case, bringing both. Cor cast the net with an expert hand, then started dubiously setting up the tackle and bait and testing out the fly of the pole. 

While he did so, he noticed Corin dragging out honey-cakes and their history book from his satchel. Cor’s eyebrows crinkled at him. “You’ve got to be joking. You, study without Master Ventus at our heels?”

Corin huffed and popped one of the cakes in his mouth as the book landed open on his lap. “ ‘S not for me, you goose. This is your history lesson for the day. I’ll read a page and summarize - I _like_ telling stories, I just don’t like writing them down! Then you can read the next page and I’ll help you with any of the hard words.”

With just about anybody else, that offer would strike Cor as somewhat embarrassing and humiliating. But Corin was so very frank about it, just like he’d been about the fishing and sailing, that Cor hadn’t any reason to be embarrassed about his own deficiencies at reading. His brother, who would rather box someone three times his size than _read_ any day, was voluntarily reading on their afternoon off. To him. _For_ him.

Grinning sheepishly over at his brother, Cor rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, contemplating, then nodded finally. He was still curious, though, still wanted to hear Corin actually come out and say it. “That’s damn good of you...but why? Why help me out when we could just be having fun?”

Corin thefted another cake from the satchel. “Because,” he said around a crumbly mouthful. “The next King has to know all the stories, and it is _definitely_ not going to be me. So you’re just going to have to learn them all. Who better to help you learn them all than me?” He gave a decisive nod along with a grin back at Cor, but the feeling behind the words was there all the same. They were a team now. A team conspiring to make sure Cor was going to be ready to be King when it came time, and in the meantime they’d have larks a-plenty and be just regular boys sometimes as well as Princes. It wasn’t fair that a younger-by-five-minutes brother got _all_ the fun.

Cor knew better than to argue about the succession with Corin while in an easily tipped coracle. So he just gave a sardonic chuckle at Corin knowing _all the stories_ and shrugged his agreement to the plan, but inside there was something warm and pleasant and happy and he decided he liked that feeling very much. “I’m listening…”

“Good. Because otherwise I’d have dragged this old thing all the way here for nothing. All right, here goes. ‘The Reign of Delin the Younger’...” Already Corin was stopping to interject with a smirk. “He was a twin.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, to my lovely last-minute beta, and to my recipient for such a wonderful, inspiring prompt. I very much enjoyed writing this peek into those first few weeks of twinning and I hope it suited!


End file.
